This doesn't get said enough. Everything can't matter equally and we should be creating incentives for local partners to step up; don't ignore the IOR, but recognize that it's not the fulcrum for US interests in Asia.
https://twitter.com/ConnellyAL/status/1351750108895821828
This was gnawing at me during the whole First Fleet trial balloon. Resources are already thin and overstretched; over-emphasizing the IOR is a setup for failure. India and Australia should be taking the lead.
Along these lines, I've admired the clarity in some Indian strategic documents (like the Maritime Security Strategy), which notes clear "primary" and "secondary" areas of interest for New Delhi in Indo-Pacific. It's okay to say certain things matter less than others.
None of this precludes US activities in the IOR that do have yields that are disproportionately positive to their costs (for instance, sustaining HA/DR & SAR ops, anti-piracy, and exercising with India/Japan/Australia, etc).
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